" When she was drooping and desponding, it was
in vain to remind her of what she had said in her gayer moments, and
to assure her that Eugene would indeed return shortly. She wept on in
silence, and appeared insensible to their words. But at times her
agitation became violent, when she would upbraid herself with having
driven Eugene from his mother, and brought sorrow on her gray hairs.
Her mind admitted but one leading idea at a time, which nothing could
divert or efface; or if they ever succeeded in interrupting the
current of her fancy, it only became the more incoherent, and
increased the feverishness that preyed upon both mind and body. Her
friends felt more alarm for her than ever, for they feared that her
senses were irrecoverably gone, and her constitution completely
undermined.
In the mean time, Eugene returned to the village. He was violently
affected, when the story of Annette was told him. With bitterness of
heart he upbraided his own rashness and infatuation that had hurried
him away from her, and accused himself as the author of all her woes.
His mother would describe to him all the anguish and remorse of poor
Annette; the tenderness with which she clung to her, and endeavoured,
even in the midst of her insanity, to console her for the loss of her
son, and the touching expressions of affection that were mingled with
her most incoherent wanderings of thought, until his feelings would be
wound up to agony, and he would entreat her to desist from the
recital.
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